Erin Shannon, junior WGS major and WILL student, won the Fall 2014 Academic Achievement Award in Women’s and Gender Studies as well as the WILL’s Alice Paul Award for Activism.
Now this academic all-star will be published in Girls Studies for her paper entitled “Disney Princess Panopticism: The Creation of Girlhood Femininity.” Mentored by former TCNJ Professor Emily Bent, Erin took a positively uplifting approach toward the Disney icons we all know and proved that girls can be their own heroes.
Jack: How did you start your research project? What is it about?
Erin: My research project is about how Disney Princess movies teach young girls how to be feminine, as I argue that femininity is not innate, but rather learned.
I decided to use the three oldest princesses—Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—because they represent ideal women in the 1930s and 1950s, yet they are still relevant today, in an era that oftentimes allows women to be the heroes of their own stories instead of making them wait for a man or a miracle to save the day. After gathering my outside research, I made an outline of the entire paper that incorporated my own argument alongside the theorists’ work. Before writing my papers, I outline all of them by hand, regardless of length, because I feel more in control of and connected to what I write that way.
Jack: Which courses or other HSS experiences inspired you to get involved in the project?
Erin: This project was the final assignment for my Feminist Theory class I took last spring with Dr. Emily Bent. Dr. Bent’s Rebel Girls FSP also inspired me, because it serves as the basis of my knowledge of girlhood.
Outside of Dr. Bent’s influence on my academic career, Dr. Ann Marie Nicolosi’s (WGS) History of Gender in Film class and Dr. Lincoln Konkle’s (English) Honors Artistic Reincarnation class, both of which I took my freshman year, made me feel confident that I could talk about movies in a legitimate, scholarly way. In addition to course experience, I am a big fan of the close reading series that our English department sponsors, because I love hearing my professors discuss topics about which they are passionate, and I want to be in that same position in academia someday.
Jack: Why is it important to study girlhood?
Erin: It is important to study girlhood because many people, even in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, find it negligible and often depoliticize it.
I think that as people, our existence is inherently political, and that includes girls. Many scholars tend to look at girls solely in their role as future women, and while that is important, in doing so, they miss out on girls’ capacity to be political agents in their childhood. For whatever reason, girls are probably the most scorned group of human beings, and it is high time we stop our eye-rolling and start taking them seriously.
Story and Interview by Jack Meyers
Photo by Jaryd Frankel